


Fear and Loathing

by TheHumming6irdWrites (JustAnotherCumberfictionFangirl)



Series: Abi & Mike [2]
Category: Irish Actor RPF, Michael Fassbender - Fandom
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, F/M, No Michael in this, This is Abi's back story, Trigger warning for Domestic abuse, Trigger warning for degrading language, Trigger warning for mention of stillbirth, trigger warning for sexual abuse, trigger warning for torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-04
Updated: 2016-04-04
Packaged: 2018-05-31 05:38:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6458026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherCumberfictionFangirl/pseuds/TheHumming6irdWrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is Abi's back story. It is what she shares with Michael at the end of chapter eight of 'Abi and Mike'. I decided to list this separately due to its graphic, non-con nature. It's not a nice, entertaining read by any stretch so I wanted readers to have the opportunity to chose whether or not they want to know all the details. If it's really not your thing please just skip this as the next chapter of 'Abi and Mike' will simply allude to some events but will not go into graphic detail. After all, the last thing I want to do is to trigger any of my lovely readers.</p><p>By now you've probably already figured that Connor is an evil dick...</p><p>[COMPLETED]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fear and Loathing

**_ Fear and Loathing _ **

_“It all started about three years after you left for England…” Abi's voice shook as she started her story._

 

It had all started so well. Connor had been attentive, courteous and kind. Abi had never been the popular girl at school, only having had a handful of dates, and was still a virgin at nineteen. All her peers had moved on, were in relationships or even married with babies on the way. Meanwhile Abi was in limbo. Michael was long gone. She didn’t fit in with the local singles crowd, she wasn’t a weekend raver, and she definitely didn’t have the confidence to move somewhere else.

She’d barely scraped through her Leaving Certificate and had no idea what she wanted to do with her life. She’d seen enough of the restaurant trade to know it wasn’t really for her, but she did still like the idea of working in hospitality somehow. Problem was, in Killarney there was very little opportunity to gain experience outside of a kitchen or small hotel.

Desperate to at least step out into the working world she’d seen an advertisement in the local newsagent looking for summer hands at the dairy farm across the lake and on a whim had called them up. It wasn’t something she even remotely wanted to do long term. She had no idea what the work would involve and no experience, but she was enthusiastic and eager to earn her own way in life. But she figured it would at least be a stepping stone towards independence over the summer - a way to earn some cash - and then maybe, _just maybe_ she’d think again about looking further afield for something more suited to her ultimate ambition.

_How hard could it actually be?_

Farmer Foley had been a kind man in his late fifties. His wife had died suddenly some years back and now he relied on seasonal workers to help out over the summer months. Along with the dairy farm, he’d also cultivated several fields of seasonal vegetables which he used to sell at the local markets. He worked long, arduous hours but was rewarded with a successful small business.

Abi and he had immediately hit it off and she’d proved to be a valuable asset. Despite her small stature, she’d worked diligently and was also happy to man the stall at the farmers market each weekend. That gave her the opportunity to work a little on her hospitality skills, making contacts, arranging tasting sessions and sometimes even hosting school visits to the farm. Foley was impressed with her organisational skills and imaginative ways to improve sales and, as the autumn approached he'd offered her a full time job. Now feeling some obligation to the lonely man - who seemed frailer and frailer every day despite his age - and honestly with no better plan in place she’d gratefully accepted.

Things had been grand, plodding along just perfectly until just after the third Christmas. Foley had come down with pneumonia, having gone out in a blizzard to rescue one of his prized dairy cows who had inexplicably escaped.

Foley died a week later. Apparently he’d been covering up some secrets of his own. The first was his weak heart.

_The second was his son…_

Connor Foley swaggered into the farmhouse the day of the funeral as if he’d never been away. He was twenty eight, almost five years older than Abi, ruggedly handsome and blessed with a silver tongue which he used to great effect, immediately overwhelming her with compliments.

Despite his advances, she’d been wary of him at first. She’d thought she knew the farmer well and yet he’d never once mentioned having a son. There were no photographs of him on the stone fireplace, no talk of him as they’d shared their lunch every day. Nothing to attest to him even being alive.

It had puzzled Abi.

Sensing her guardedness, he’d told her he’d been working in Scotland. He went into great detail about how he’d wanted to get out of Ireland and travel to pastures new, but on hearing of his father’s passing had dropped everything and returned home.

Over the next few months Connor had taken the reins from his dead father and the pair of them had fallen into the same, safe routine as Abi and his predecessor.

Connor had continued showering attention on Abi, telling her she was funny and pretty and making up excuses to be around her when she was working. As the summer months drew to a close they were sat under the apple tree at the far end of the garden one evening, watching the sun set over the distant lake when he’d finally made his move.

He’d leaned over and kissed her square on the lips like it was the most natural thing in the world to do. Abi had been shocked at first, instinctively trying to push him away. But as Connor’s lips had pressed harder against her own she’d felt a heat rise in her belly that she had all but forgotten since Michael had left and in the blink of an eye she had responded.

Connor was infinitely more experienced than she was of course and, embarrassed about her own _total_ lack of experience after just turning twenty four, she'd lied when he’d asked if she had done this with anyone else. He’d grabbed her small hand in his much larger one and shoved it down his work trousers urging her to touch him and she’d obliged, fumbling with his thick member while he’d grabbed roughly at her small breasts through the thin T-shirt she wore. Yet he’d never tried to take it any further. In her naïve mind, Abi had taken this as a sign of Connor being a gentleman - a gesture to show he wanted to take things slowly, that he was patient and that _maybe_ he even sensed her inexperience and didn’t want to frighten her away.

It had quickly become a ‘thing’ they just did at the end of the working week, usually after they’d finished at the farmers market on the Saturday evening. Abi hadn’t been foolish enough to think it was love at that point. But this man was at least showing her _some_ attention when no-one else had ever bothered. Faced with the prospect of potentially turning away the only man who might actually find her skinny frame attractive and at the same time losing her job, she’d somehow managed to persuade herself that she, in turn, had feelings for Connor.

_What even was love anyway? She’d thought she loved Mike. But where had that ever gotten her?_

When he’d asked her to marry him less than six months later she’d accepted. He _must_ love her, she’d persuaded herself, despite the words having never left his lips.

Her parents had not been happy about it in the slightest. They thought she was both far too young to settle down and had also expressed their concerns about Connor a few times, saying there was something ‘off’ about him. Abi, by this time so under his spell, had fought with them and stormed off, leaving home, in the process also leaving her entire support network behind, and moving out to the remote farm just as winter approached. They’d been married in a simple ceremony on New Year’s Day with no guests, only the obligatory witnesses present.

Their wedding night should have been romantic, special and memorable. It was certainly memorable, but for all the wrong reasons. Connor had drunkenly taken her roughly, with little foreplay. Abi had cried out in pain, the feel of his thick member penetrating her unprepared body so alien that her body had immediately tensed up. Seemingly oblivious Connor had continued to relentlessly thrust himself, apparently mistaking her cries of distress for screams of ecstasy.  Afterwards, when he'd questioningly looked at the bloodstained sheets she’d confessed that she had been a virgin, her humiliation evident in her voice as tears began to roll down her face.

Connor had been mortified, his own tears falling as he’d guiltily apologised for hurting her - _or at least that was how it had appeared at the time_ \- Abi would learn much later that he got off on the memory, in that he hadn’t so much taken her virginity as desecrated it.

Abi had found herself apologising for making a mess, internally cursing herself and desperately praying that despite how terribly it had hurt and how useless she must have been he wouldn’t leave her because of the lie she’d told him.

Because as she was soon to discover, if there was one thing Connor hated above everything else, it was when she lied to him.

The mental abuse had been the first real indicator that all was truly not well in their marriage. Name calling - innocuous initially, supposedly said in jest - but soon becoming more and more insidious until it seemed to pervade every waking moment.

Abi was ‘stupid’ for doing things around the farm a certain way (despite it being the way old Foley had taught her). She was useless because she couldn’t seem to do anything how Connor expected it to be done. She was a terrible cook. The flasks of tea she would make for him to take out into the field were always too hot, too cold, too strong or too weak. Little things, which at first she didn’t really notice but which started to become a pattern.

And then there was the money Connor's father had left her. It had proved to be a huge bone of contention, Abi having had no idea she’d been included in Old Foley’s will.

Apparently neither had Connor.

_And he was not happy._

When the will had been discovered some four months after they had started ‘dating’ Connor had been unable to hide the gasp which had escaped his lips. He hadn’t been left a single bean, meanwhile Abi had been left both the deeds to the house _and_ the farm, along with just under ten thousand euros in the bank.

Guiltily - _and again against her parents advice_ \- she’d signed over the deeds to whom she assumed should be the farms rightful owner, _Connor_. After all, she had no intention of working there for the rest of her life and he was blood, wasn’t he?!

That spectre of betrayal from Connor’s own father would come back to haunt Abi, fuelling his drunken rages and his vitriolic diatribes. They’d been married for nearly six months when Connor started with his next campaign of abuse. The money had suddenly become the perfect excuse in his twisted mind to put her down, questioning her motives for even _being_ on the farm in the first place. Despite the very clear evidence that Connor had been her first - _and only -_ lover, he’d started to accuse her of seducing his father and using her ‘feminine wiles’ to orchestrate his changing of the will (Connor having apparently been sole beneficiary until Abi had come along). Yet no evidence of that old will ever seemed to materialise.

He never physically hit her back in those days. It was words that hurt her so badly. The man she’d put her trust in didn’t trust _her_. And he took every waking opportunity to tell her so in ever more elaborate ways as she became his verbal punch bag.

By the time they had been married for a little over a year, Connor was constantly nagging that he wanted a son and heir, but Abi wasn’t ready. She’d tried to reason with him, explaining that they should take advantage of being a couple while they were still young. Abi had, after all, only just turned twenty five. She wanted to see places, and had even suggested they use some of the money Connor’s father had left her to book a holiday. She’d thought getting away from the farm might take some of the day to day stress out of their lives, and maybe Connor would show her how he truly loved her. She’d massively miscalculated that assumption. They had argued yet again about the money, Connor accusing her of wanting to squander _his_ rightful inheritance and then reminding her that as farmers, they couldn’t just up and leave the livestock as and when it suited them.

Abi had disconsolately agreed, but at the first opportunity, when Connor had sent her off to the farmers market alone, she’d called into the drop in clinic at the family planning centre and secretly obtained a prescription for the pill.

 _Better to be safe than sorry_ she’d thought.

If only a simple little pill could have kept her safe.

Connor grew more and more obsessed with getting her pregnant, taking her regularly and roughly at any opportunity, convinced that it was just a matter of time before he would impregnate her. When, after a further year had elapsed and she was still without child he began to point the finger at her, angrily accusing her of trapping him in a barren marriage and withholding his God given right, a son. She’d had to bite back arguing with the ludicrousness of the accusations, by now used to his tyrannical rants, even though she alone knew the reason for their lack of success.

She’d discovered not long after she’d started taking the pill that Connor didn’t believe in birth control. He said it went against the churches teachings and no married couple of child bearing age needed it anyway. Scared to reveal she’d been taking it for so long at this point, and knowing it would just cause yet another argument, she’d hidden her tablets away underneath her old suitcase at the back of the wardrobe.

The day he’d found them was the first day he’d hit her. She’d just come in from milking the cows and had headed upstairs to grab a quick shower, only to find Connor waiting for her, sat on the bed. He’d had tears in his eyes as he’d watched her approach and she’d sat down alongside him, wondering what had got him so upset.

In a low voice she’d barely recognised he’d whispered “ _You_ ”.

Abi had worried her lip, wondering what on earth she’d done this time. She’d made the bed, prepared his lunch, scrubbed the bathroom, and folded his morning paper just how he insisted on having it, leaving it alongside his breakfast tray on the dining table. She’d glanced up at the door. _No she hadn’t forgotten to hang up his bathrobe either.._.

She’d sat there alongside him in stony silence, racking her brain trying to think what new rule she’d forgotten this time and came up with nothing.

In despair she’d turned to him and tried to take his hand but he’d pulled away, instead dangling the half empty box of pills in front of her face accusingly.

The air had left Abi’s lungs as she’s desperately tried to think of an excuse, _anything_ to explain them away.

Nothing came to her, because in all honesty there was nothing she _could_ say that would make this okay with him.

If she’d thought she’d seen him angry before, this was a whole other level. In the blink of an eye he was on his feet, dragging her across the room and pinning her up against the wall by her throat.

She’d pulled desperately at his hands, fighting to clear her airways as his thick fingers tightened their vice like grip. Her legs had unconsciously kicked out and she must have connected with his crotch as he’d winced in pain before squeezing her throat even tighter and punching her in the stomach. The last thing she remembered before she’d lost consciousness was a tirade of abuse spewing from his mouth as his other hand fumbled with the belt on her jeans.

When she’d woken, she’d found herself tucked up in bed alongside him as if nothing had happened.

It was only as she’d inhaled a shaky breath that she’s felt the rasping pain in her throat and the dull ache in her stomach.

“You’re awake baby” Connor had whispered, pulling her rigid body stiffly against his own and stroking her matted hair away from her tear-stained face.

“Now who’s been a silly, silly little girl, eh?” he’d crooned, shifting his hand from her hair and slipping it down and around her aching hips, making her wonder if she was in some alternative universe. This wasn’t the Connor she knew. He’d never held her like this before. It seemed almost… tender.

But as she’d started to relax her muscles his voice had turned from a sweet, lilting purr to an icy growl “silly little girls who break the rules need to be taught a lesson in respect Abi… I hope you’ve learnt yours?”

His hand had grasped her hair then, snapping her head back so that she was chin to chin with him, his dark eyes staring menacingly into her watery pale ones. She gulped back a sob, knowing that crying would only make him angrier with her and had nodded, flinching as pain had shot through her neck again.

 _“Say it!”_ he’d growled, his other hand having gripped her chin, forcing her to keep eye contact with him.

“I…I’m s… sorry” she’d rasped, her voice barely audible as she’d willed away the tears of pain which had threatened to fall.

“Louder…” he’d hissed, enjoying seeing the distress in her eyes.

“I…I’m sorry. I w…won’t break the rules again… _I promise_ ” she’d stuttered, swallowing down the tears along with her heartache.

When he’d finally released her he’d told her to go get cleaned up and meet him downstairs. Abi has stumbled into the bathroom and collapsed on the floor, noticing for the first time that she was naked from the waist down. Her inner thighs were bloody and bruises were already beginning to form. She’d thrown her head back against the wall and sobbed, telling herself it was all her own stupid fault for lying to him in the first place. She was his wife. She shouldn’t have kept her birth control secret from him.

Yet the thought of bringing a baby into this environment had frankly terrified her. When she’d finally been able to gather her wits and clean herself up, she’d discovered the full extent of her injuries. Her neck was already a deep purple, bruised and incredibly painful. She’d tried to take only small breaths to lessen the pain but even those made her wince and bite her tongue. To accompany the bruises on her inner thighs, there had been a large one on her lower belly, she vaguely remembered him punching her when she’d lashed out and the tears had started afresh at the hazy memory of him forcing down her jeans and… she’d doubled over as a sharp stabbing pain had pulsed through her lower abdomen and down to her crotch and she instinctively knew he had violated her. Pushing away that thought, she’d chastised herself, numbly standing up - almost in a daze – and reminding herself that she was his _wife_ , he had every right to have sex with her if he wanted to. Wasn’t that what she’d vowed after all?

With a deep sigh she’d finally pulled herself together enough to dress and had staggered down the stairs, where her husband was waiting to be served his dinner. He was remorseful in that he'd apologised when he'd seen the bruising around her neck, telling her he might have been a little over-zealous, but tempering his apology by making it clear that he had only got so upset because _she_ had lied to him. He'd pulled her into his lap and gently stroked the dark marks, suggesting that she might be best staying indoors for the next few days and recuperating.

She’d vowed at that moment to never let things get this out of hand again. She had still been adamant that bringing a baby into the relationship would be a mistake and despite knowing she was again going against her husband’s express wishes, she had managed to get an appointment the following week for a contraceptive injection when Connor was at a local cattle fair, thus meaning he would be none the wiser about her little white lie this time.

This small defiance was her one and only ‘v’ sign to Connors ever more despotic attitude.

She’d thought it would be easier. After all, she could honestly tell him she was no longer taking the pill if he ever asked. _That wasn’t a lie…_

Unfortunately for Abi, the floodgates on Connor's temper had already well and truly been breached that day he’d discovered the pills.

She was already too late to plug the hole.

His behaviour became more and more demanding. There were new rules she couldn’t possibly obey every single day and he took great delight in punishing each and every one that she broke. His punishments would vary, anything from verbal abuse, to a harsh slap across her face - or if he was _really_ angry - sex. His cruelty knew no bounds. He seemed to get off on the fear in her eyes.

Looking back, it was easy to see how that pattern of abuse had escalated. It was always take first, ask later. 

Connor would act remorseful afterwards, yet take great pains to remind her how much she had _appeared_ to enjoy it at the time. His doleful eyes would make her feel guilty for even questioning his actions and with no frame of reference to fall back on, Abi came to believe that this kind of ‘love-making’ was normal. Sure, he was a little rough with her, but she was his wife - her body and mind were his to do with as he pleased he told her.

Yet now, in hindsight it was easy to see how easily he'd manipulated her. First by being so overwhelmingly attentive, then slowly but surely isolating her from her few friends and family. The farmhouse, on the other side of Lake Killarney, lay on the hillside in a harsh, isolated location. The nearest village - if you could even call it that - was several miles away. Her parents, while only a matter of a short boat ride away or less than thirty minutes in the car, were the last place she felt welcome. Over the years, Connor had woven such deep seated resentment of their warnings to her that she felt like she hated them, and in turn them her.

In reality, Connor had preyed on every single one of Abi’s insecurities like a master musician composing his magnum opus and exploited each and every one to his own gain.

This systematic abuse continued for several years. Abi became more and more ashamed that she seemed to be completely unable to satisfy her husband. Beaten into submission she barely left the farmhouse anymore, other than to tend the fields when no-one else was around. Connor would no longer let her speak to the seasonal workers, having convinced himself the prior year that she had been flirting with a Polish man who had been employed to help with the harvest. Piotr had been softly spoken, kind and hardworking – the complete antithesis of Connor. She’d had the distinct feeling he’d known she was in deep trouble but Connor seemed to be omnipresent and they’d barely been able to share even a single word before he would appear, as if from nowhere, shouting demands of Piotr and humiliating Abi by pawing at her in a very public display of ownership. Despite this, Piotr always had a smile for her. It betrayed his concern for her. She had never encouraged him, but Connor noticed these sideways glances as they would work and would take it out on Abi in their bed at night – taking her in the most humiliating ways he could invent whilst spitting venomous warnings about what he would do both to her and any man who ever dared to try to take her away from him.

One day Piotr had noticed a dark bruise on the inside of her wrist as she’d removed her watch to wash her hands, and without even bothering to question her had offered to help her escape from Connor. Paralysed by fear, she’d lied and said she’d caught it in one of the heavy gates that led into the milking parlour. She’d known Piotr didn’t believe her, his fists clenched as he looked over towards the farmhouse. What she hadn’t known was that Connor had overheard the entire conversation.

Piotr was never seen again after that day.

Connor had told her that he’d been suddenly called back home to Poland as his mother was ill. It had seemed far too convenient, yet who was she to question him? Piotr had probably just thought better of getting involved in someone else’s shit and gotten out of dodge!

Connor had been even more oppressive after that and wouldn’t let her out of his sight. She was no longer allowed to work at the farmers market, instead she was essentially held hostage within the four walls of the farmhouse.

Abi had finally come to the realisation that she would no longer be able to visit the family planning clinic for her contraceptive injection, and realised that she now had no other option but to allow nature to take its course. She somehow managed to fool herself into believing that if she _was_ to finally fall pregnant Connor might actually love her and stop being so angry with her for not giving him a son. And she would in turn have someone she could love back.

But also someone who would need _her_ protection.

Another year had passed and she had actually begun to believe that she really was a ‘fucking barren waste of space’ as he had so affectionately come to call her, when it finally happened.

Nothing could have prepared her for that first flutter of life in her womb. Despite the less than auspicious conception, Abi finally had something to focus on. She’d been sick on and off for nearly a fortnight and Connor had insisted on her taking the test, by this point she was all but resigned to the idea that her body was inhospitable. But there had been the proof. Those two bright pink lines telling her that there was not only a tiny life growing inside her, but also a possible glimmer of hope.

That night he’d actually made love to her - carefully, tenderly - and for the first time in their seven year marriage she’d actually felt like he might actually truly _love_ her.

Everything had finally seemed to click into place. Connor doted on her and Abi truly believed he’d turned over a new leaf. He couldn’t seem to do enough for her. Gone was the angry, domineering man who found fault in every single thing she did, replaced instead with the tender, affectionate man who lovingly caressed her growing belly, kissing her forehead and the bump each morning as he'd left to tend to the cows.

In the evenings he would read to them both, cradling her on his lap and whispering sweet nothings about how proud he was of her and how excited he was to meet their son.

She’d asked how he knew it was a boy and he’d dismissed her with a huge grin, stating “I just know baby!”

Those four months were glorious. It was late summer and there was still a warm glow in the air. But then Abi had started to suffer with pains in her pelvis and reluctantly Connor had taken her to the hospital – for all his doting, he still didn’t trust her to leave the farm alone and she had yet to see an obstetrician. But as Abi had urged, she was scared for the baby. Connor had finally agreed, driving her out of town to the next city along where no-one knew them. They’d sat in the emergency room, pretending they were out of towners (which of course they were) trying to explain away the fact that Abi hadn’t even had a dating scan. The doctor had insisted on doing a full work up and scan to check that everything was progressing well. Abi’s pain's were put down to symphysis pubis dysfunction due to her small frame and she was given crutches to help take some of the pressure off her pelvis, but Abi couldn’t help but wonder if her old injuries weren’t contributing to her symptoms.

Nothing could have prepared her for the joy she’d felt as she’d heard her baby’s heartbeat for the first time, and in those brief few moments she honestly could not remember a time where she’d ever been happier, tears of joy welling up in her eyes which she'd hastily wiped away before Connor noticed. But she needn’t have worried. Connor was far more transfixed with the image on the screen, searching for that assurance that she was indeed carrying his _son_.

She should have known the joy wouldn’t last.

_It never did._

The moment the doctor had confirmed the sex of the baby _everything_ changed. Connor dropped her hand coldly and looked away from the monitor. He couldn’t get out of that office fast enough.

They’d driven home in steely silence, the air fraught with tension. Back at the farm he’d left her in the car, the crutches still in the boot as he’d stalked off inside the farmhouse, slamming the door behind him.

She’d seen the signs before as the red mist descended over him and fearing another beating she’d made a run for it - as best she could at nearly six months pregnant with agonising pains in her pelvis. That would prove to be one of the worst decisions she had made in her short life of terrible decisions.

Connor had found her hiding in the rear of the cow shed. He’d defiled her that evening, sodomising her viciously and repeatedly despite her weakened state and feeble attempts to escape. When he was finally done with her he’d left her, dazed and bleeding in a heap on the floor.

She’d thought the worst was over and had passed out among the hay stacks - the sound of the cows snorting and bellowing nearby finally lulling her into a fitful sleep as she’d clutched the precious cargo kicking wildly inside her stomach.

_She’d been wrong._

Sometime later, she didn’t know how long exactly - other than that the late afternoon had given way to an eerily still darkness - she’d woken in the field, aching and shivering, her legs bound to a long length of rope which in turn had been attached to the rear of the tractor.

“Why the fuck can’t you ever get anything right bitch?!” Connor was stood over her, screaming, his eyes wild as he spat at her “Who’s is that bastard inside you? _Hey?_ I _told_ you I wanted a son and you couldn’t even fucking get that right! Stupid dumb ass whore… who did you fuck? _Tell me?_ That isn’t my fucking kid you’re carrying… is it? You were _meant_ to give me a _boy_ …”

Abi had tried to speak but her throat was hoarse from screaming. When she didn’t respond he’d taken that as an admission of guilt.

“ _Who… was… it_?” he’d yelled, the tendons in his thick neck bulging as he leant down over her, gripping her cheeks between his rough hands “I know it wasn’t that fucking Polish prick you were fooling around with last year… I took care of him good and proper” he’d smirked then, an evil glint flickering across his eyes as he obviously relived a satisfying memory.

Abi had whimpered as the pieces started to finally fall into place and she'd realised that Connor would stop at nothing, _even murder_ , to gain ultimate control of her. She'd begun to kick out hysterically, her legs severely hampered by the rope strapped around them as she’d desperately tried to drag him off balance.

He’d merely stepped back and laughed at her, mocking her feeble attempts to break free before pulling down his pants and looming over her, dick in hand.

“No… no…” she’d screamed, forcing all the air she could possibly gather into her lungs.

“You think I’d want to fuck _you_ now?!” he’d hissed “just look at the fucking state of you… _you’re just a filthy whore like all the rest!_ I gave you everything I had bitch and look how you repay me?! You took my fucking _inheritance_ from me, my _son_ from me and instead tried to palm me off with another pathetic little whore child to screw men over… you bitches are all the fucking same. That one my dad married screwed me over just like you. She wanted him to sell up and move away but _no!_ I made damn sure she was out of the fucking picture… trouble was, that pathetic excuse of a man was so pussy whipped he guessed and threw me out…Course, he couldn’t prove a damn thing… I made sure I covered my tracks well...”

Connor had been pacing back and forth, stroking his dick angrily as it all came tumbling out of his venomous mouth, his eyes darting backwards and forwards, from the farmhouse to the old barn and then back down at Abi, as she’d laid, caked in mud, whimpering with fear as she’d finally begun to understand just _how_ evil her husband truly was. Connor had suddenly snapped back to his senses, staring mockingly down at her, a sneer forming on his thin lips.

“Oh love…” he’d crooned in that evil purr that always filled her with dread “you really _are_ filthy! Here… let me help clean you up a bit”

And with that menacing smirk she hated so much, he’d positioned himself over her prostrate body and urinated, spraying himself across her bloodied thighs and muddy limbs.

“There, there… much better!” he’d cackled, shoving his flaccid penis back inside his jeans. He’d stood intimidatingly over her for a few more moments and she’d tensed, gripping her now still belly protectively and closing her eyes, waiting for the next blow, praying he would just do it quickly and put her out of her misery.

When a minute had passed and nothing had happened she’d squinted one eye open, only to see the stars twinkling in the clear night sky above her. She’d tried to roll onto her side but an agonising pain shot through her pelvis, so instead she merely turned her head and just caught a glimpse of him stalking off down the hill back towards the farmhouse, _where she would later discover he had drunk himself unconscious_.

Biting back the humiliation and pain, her mind had begun to swim with the realisation that Connor had not only killed Foley’s wife – _Abi would later learn that Mrs Foley was not Connor’s natural mother. She had died giving birth to his stillborn younger sister_ – but also Piotr and who knew, _possibly_ even Old Foley himself (she had, after all, never been able to fathom how that cow had escaped from its secure pen).

Abi had realised this was likely to be the one and only chance she would ever have to escape. She was no longer under any illusions. Connor _would_ kill her if she didn’t get away right now.

 _And_ her baby too.

Seizing what little remained of her strength, she’d dragged herself up into a sitting position, biting back the agonising pains shooting through her pelvis as she’d leant forward and fumbled with the muddy rope tied around her ankles. She’d grabbed a thick woody root which had been poking out of the ground and bit down hard on it as she’d tried to mask her cries of pain, her shaky hands making slow work of untangling the tight knots in the rope. _She knew she couldn’t let him hear her._

She had no idea how long he would be. Whether he’d decided to just leave her out there for the night at the mercy of the elements and the foxes, or whether he’d gone to get the keys to the tractor, or perhaps even worse, the old hunting rifle he kept over the threshold. The only thing she was thankful for at that moment was that the furious kicking in her abdomen had started again.

_At least he hadn’t taken that away from her._

It was that life growing inside her that she’d focused on as she'd finally broke out of the ropes and crawled towards the edge of the field. Pain had shot through her entire body with each desperately sluggish movement, but she’d gritted her teeth around that old root and focused only on one thing. Her escape. Finally reaching the fence, she’d dragged herself upright, almost collapsing straight back down into the mud as the pain in her pelvis became almost unbearable. Her fingers gripped tightly at the wooden fence, clawing at it with her nails as she tried to breathe through the burning sensation and hang on.

Her progress had been agonisingly slow. After almost blacking out from the pain she’d had to rest for what was most likely only a few minutes, but which, at the time had felt like hours as her eyes stared over at the farmhouse, praying for the door not to open.

Finally, just as the sun had begun to peek out over the horizon of the distant lake, Abi had made it past that old apple tree and onto the roadside and collapsed. The last thing she'd seen as she'd closed her eyes was the beautiful lakeside house across the water - just down the road from Killarney - lit up like a beacon of light beckoning her home…

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I cannot stress this enough. This is a work of fiction, but It isn't an entertaining read. I have based some events on case studies I found online, so I at least hope it comes across as realistic. Having said that, I hope at the very least it gives you some insight into what Abi is still dealing with and why she is so hesitant to take things further with Michael.


End file.
